The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."

Sunday, July 24, 2011

The last person we need to hear from on the state of the antiwar movement is surely Todd Gitlin, the has-been "New" Left leader now a college professor of something-or-other. After all, it was none other than Gitlin, in the run up to the invasion of Iraq – and the biggest antiwar demonstrations since his own heyday – who took to the pages of Mother Jones magazine and criticized the antiwar movement for not "rebuking" Saddam Hussein. He was appalled at the signs at antiwar rallies calling for "No Sanctions" and "No Bombing." Sure, the sanctions were "a humanitarian disaster for the country’s civilians," wrote Gitlin, but –echoing the claims made by Washington – he averred that the Iraqi government "bears some responsibility for that disaster." This was nonsensical back then, and it is even more so now that we know there neverwere any "weapons of mass destruction," as the US government claimed, and therefore no justification for the sanctions.

And what, pray tell, would an "antiwar" movement that refused to oppose bombing amount to, exactly? What universe is Gitlin living in? The same universe he’s living in today – one in which a former antiwar "leader" has turned into a cheerleader for "liberal" imperialism of the sort practiced by his hero, Barack Obama. This is clear from the content of his latest screed, a tract purporting to explain why the antiwar movement is in the doldrums.

The International Socialist Organization (ISO) posted an editorial July 13 (“Claiming the Republican agenda as his own”), on the subject of Barack Obama’s proposal for massive budget cuts, which begins, "Turns out the president many expected to revive the New Deal is out to bury it instead."The comment failed to mention any of these "many" people with misplaced expectations by name. The editors at socialistworker.org are far too modest. Among those who energetically encouraged illusions in Obama were the ISO and its website, as well as many in the environs in which the ISO functions, including the left-liberal orbit of the Nation magazine and the trade unions. They bear a share of political responsibility for the present disastrous situation.

Say no to the crazy. We'll all be a lot better off. And "grandma"? I (Jim) just typed -- and then deleted -- a sentence. Dona asked me, "What are you writing about your grandmother for?" I have no idea but that's how tired I am.

Dona cried "Short feature!" I replied, "What?" She had no idea but pointed out we could do a short feature and then go to sleep. We all jumped at the idea and Jess surfed over to the White House where he found the picture we use in this.

Thursday on Flashpoints Radio, our buddy Raed Jarrar emerged from his padded cell to treat the nation to a seven-course meal of crazy. Jar-Jar informed of the reports of Nouri continuing the secret prisons and other news, "These attempts to bring up the crimes of the Iraqi government in the last few weeks are not really about exposing the crimes of the Iraqi government, they are more about justifying a longer US occupation."

If you weren't swallowing what Raed was serving, it might have been because you know his history of being wrong or it might have been because you can certainly detect crazy when you hear it. Raed Jarrar is convinced that there is a conspiracy with the media, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and who knows who else. This conspiracy determines what the (limited) coverage coming out of Iraq will be.

Forget that Iraqi Revolution regularly burns US flags and denounces the occupation, according to Raed's conspiracy theory, they're actually working with Nouri and Barack and others to keep the US military in Iraq forever.

The Great Iraqi Revolution also highlights the threats and violence the security forces aim at protesters. We guess they're in on the conspiracy too?

In fact, the whole thing's starting to remind us of a scene in Annie Hall between Alvy (Woody Allen) and Allison (Carol Kane).Allison: Then everybody's in on the conspiracy?

Alvy: (Nodding) Tsch.

Allison: The FBI and the CIA and J. Edgar Hoover and oil companies and the Pentagon -- and the men's room attendant at the White House?

Alvy: I would leave out the men's room attendant.

And we would leave out Raed Jarrar when it comes to looking for a trusted voice. This is, after all, the same Raed Jarrar who stopped caring about the Iraq War after Barack was in office and insisted that the war ended December 31, 2011 because the SOFA told him so. As negotiations continue to extend the US military presence beyond that date, Raed is revealed to be both a mental midget and supremely wrong.

Remember that the next time you hear him speaking and just say no to crazy.

Last week, David Walsh (WSWS) reported, "The Obama administration is proposing trillions in cuts to programs wide layers of the American population depend on. Life will become harsh and even unbearable for many. There is confusion and illusions in the working class, but the objective logic of events is unmistakable: an extraordinary intensification of the class struggle is on the agenda whatever the details of the deal eventually worked out with the Republicans in Congress." It seemed like such an important story would be covered by more than Walsh and Lambert (Corrente). And if you wanted left coverage on your TV (and radio and internet), surely you could count on Democracy Now, right?

Amy Goodman's vanity-cast is an exercise in many things (next week, we plan to explore that further) but it pretends to be about the news and the issues effecting the people. Surely 'brave' Amy would spend the entire week zooming in on the attempts to gut the safety net, right?

If you're surprised by the answer (she didn't spend the week zooming in on it), you haven't been paying attention to Goodman who sold out whatever was left of her sordid reputation to whore for Barack. And if Barack wants to gut the safety net, you better believe Amy's more than ready to look elsewhere. Over and over.

As they sharpened the scissors for the safety net, Goodman had so many other things to cover. Monday found her doing two segments -- the first on what the British Parliament would be doing (asking questions of Prime Minister David Cameron) and the second was boring us with yet another White man telling us how great it was that apartheid was no more in South Africa. Is it really that difficult to find a Black South Afrikaner to speak on the topic?

Tuesday, the topic was briefly raised by Ralph Nader who was brought on to talk about Barack by passing Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Though that was kept brief, Goodman had plenty of time for the British story again (she's obsessed with Rupert Murdoch -- and she's as damaging as Murdoch, again, wait for next week's piece) for not one but two segments, then more Murdoch obsession due to an NYC issue and then it was time for a death row story.

Wednesday found Goodman fearing she hadn't done enough on the Murdoch and David Cameron stories so she did a segment on each and also chatted up a Newsweek reporter about nothing new, nothing current.

Thursday, Goodman again had a segment on David Cameron and one on Murdoch, she had one on Gaza and one on Israel.

Friday, Juan Gonzalez explained the court verdict against the crooked SEIU, there was a segment on famine in the Horn of Africa, a segment on how the Republicans were attempting to use the debt ceiling to impose GOP desires and Cenk Uygur whining.

She had time for everything but the issue that will effect the lives of so many Americans.

Let's leave the assholery of Amy Goodman for a moment to jump over to stupidity. We try so hard to ignore Libby Liberal so we won't have to call her out but she's a very uniformed person who grows ever more dangerous as she wallpapers her writings (ravings) all over the internet. In her latest, she wants you to know that "Cenk Uygur escaped this week with his soul and his scalp from MSNBC." Did he? Did he really?

Because he said so.

And Cenk would never lie, right? And he and his beliefs must mesh perfectly with Libby since she's rushing to vouch for this person she's never met.

He told Amy Goodman, "I think President Obama is clearly, you know, a Republican. I know, because in the 1990s I was a Republican, and he's way to the right of me, and I've hardly changed any positions." That's Libby? He told Amy Goodman, "I think Rachel Maddow has done a brilliant job in becoming more and more independent. And I think she does a fantastic progressive show, and she did it by accruing power, by getting better and better ratings." That represents Libby's thoughts as well?

Strange because she writes, "Or a dazzlingly bright Rachel Maddow sells her soul for celebrity and money. That GE paycheck can turn around an anti-war stance faster than a speeding bullet." Libby's really stupid. Rachel Maddow was an Iraq War cheerleader on Air America Radio. She has always applauded the Afghanistan War. Those are facts and it would be helpful if Libby would acquaint herself with a few before attempting to write.

Equally true, she should grasp that just because one person says something doesn't make it the complete truth or even a section of the truth. Cenk Uygur is out as host on MSNBC for a number of reasons including the fact that he was a temporary host of a program due to go dark when he was brought on as host. Here's another fact, while Uygur brags that he increased the ratings of MSNBC Live, it wasn't by much and he continued to lose viewers. Hardball aired before his program and after and both Hardballs had higher ratings on most days than Uygur. Meaning people went out of their way to turn off the TV or watch another channel when Uygur came on. Al Sharpton will be hosting a program in the hour Uygur previously occupied; however, Sharpton was not the first, second or third choice. Had MSNBC been able to close the deal they wanted to in February, Uygur would have left the airwaves as host by the end of March. There is also the issue of likability and, as one MSNBC executive joked, "Leona Helmsley has a better TVQ rating than Cenk."

Libby is off in la-la land declaring the whole Uygur drama to be Network and Howard Beale leaving us to wonder if no one in her tiny circle has ever told Libby that Network is a deeply sexist film? They'd have to tell her, Libby's demonstrated for over a year that interpretation is not a skill she possess.

Libby seems confused as to what Uygur was doing on MSNBC. He was not reporting. He was a TV host doing interviews. The sort of thing that Johnny Carson pioneered so effortlessly. And MSNBC wanted a warm and friendly host for the talk show. That's not an unreasonable request.

Building on Uygur's airy claims, Libby appears to be arguing censorship. MSNBC is adament to us that they never told Uygur what he could or could not say in commentaries or interviews. They just asked that he be less hostile to guests appearing on the talk show. Like Uygur, Libby tries to string together other MSNBC personalities. Tellingly, she leaves out Ashleigh Banfield (whom Uygur does mention on Democracy Now!). It's that sort of move that repeatedly distances Libby from political women (though female doormats embrace her).

Then she's off on a rant that few dare follow all the way to the hollow of her mind, "NO ONE gets to cross over, at least for long, to give too much truth or DISRESPECTFUL TONE to power. Isn’t that so, Keith or Bill Moyers or whomever?"

What is she attempting to imply?

Keith Olbermann was fired for just cause and we've covered it here. Libby's forever attempting to turn male misogynists into heroes -- she's the battered woman praising the man who beat her. Reading her, you find yourself hoping the sentences were typed between bong hits because that would at least explain their loopy nature.

However, nothing can explain her assertion that Bill Moyers learned no one can tell the truth "at least for long."

Political hack (for LBJ) Moyers left the Johnson administration to go into the print news medium. When he switched over to broadcast (1971), it was PBS. In 1976, he joined CBS. He took that year and the next off from PBS but then returned and stayed with them until 1986. 1986 is also when he left CBS. That was when his own production company was formed and he began work on the PBS series Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. Does Libby know that?

There's no indication that she knows anything about Bill Moyers' career. And there she is implying that Moyers' quest for honesty removed him from broadcast journalism when in fact the man she's trying to make a martyr came off, in Keach Hagey's POLITICO report earlier this month, as guilty of all the crimes Libby's supposedly outraged by.

With Libby, the question is not: How can she be so stupid?

With Libby, the question is: How can she be so repeatedly stupid?

And that's because of Amy Goodman. Libby doesn't breathe Democracy Now!, she snorts it. She snorts it, she mainlines it, she rolls it up in a Zig Zag and smokes it. Given the opportunity, she'd probably try to dry hump it. Amy Goodman's show stopped being about information long, long ago. For some time now, it's existed solely to enrage.

Apparently, Goodman's grasped that she can propagandize so much better by beating tribal drums and playing smear the scary "other."

And that motive explains why Barack's announced plans to gut the safety net were of no concern to her last week.

Baby you're just no good for meAnd I'm no good for youLet's not waste our time talkingWe both know what to do

We've got to get off this road to nowhereIt's time to get off this road to nowhereYou've got to get off this road to nowhereWe've got to get off this road to nowhere-- "Road To Nowhere," written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, performed best by Judy Henske

Barack Obama is worried about the debt ceiling, if you missed it. He wasn't worried about it when he was a senator. As NPR's Mara Liasson (All Things Considered) noted at the start of the month, "President Obama, when he was in the Senate, voted against raising the debt ceiling because, he said, it was a symbol of a failure of leadership on the Republican president."

And he didn't spend the year worrying about it. But he sure did create a crisis out of it, didn't he? One he is manipulating to gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

In all of the talk of the 'crisis,' we find no one pointing out the obvious: Does the president of the United States acting so alarmist not influence creditors?

If we're all so gosh darn worried about our credit rating and what might happen if the debt ceiling (an artificial creation started to justify war spending in WWI) is reached, should the president be all over the TV insisting doom, doom, doom is upon us?

Or might that sort of Chicken Little behavior actually hurt the country?

It's a valid question and, you'll note, it's one that's gone unasked.

The president is supposed to set a tone. Even when it comes to a ceremonial task, Barack's a failure. He's played alarmist and petulant bully throughout the so-called crisis to the point that the number of people who take him seriously continues to dwindle.

What fiscal crisis? The great unasked question in this summer of sound-and-fury is "why?" The United States has many problems at the moment: a high-and-stubborn unemployment rate, a foreclosure catastrophe, a slowing economy that has not recovered and will not recover from the Great Crisis, and the ongoing challenges of infrastructure, energy and climate change. Fiscal crisis? The entire thing is a figment, made up of wise-men's warnings repeated endlessly and linked to the projections of technicians at the Congressional Budget Office and elsewhere.

The projections, as I've written here, are made up of two economically impossible arguments. One is that there will be a big economic rebound, restoring near-full employment by 2013 or so. We're already off that track, as some of us warned from the beginning. Of course, a recovery would reduce the deficit even if nothing were done. But CBO then recreates the exploding debt by assumptions, which include steady growth and low inflation, but sharply higher health care costs and much higher short-term interest rates. These lead the projected debt to compound skyward, soon surpassing all previous records in relation to GDP.

Is this possible? No it is not. The Federal Reserve would never raise the short-term interest rate, as CBO projects, without a prior increase of inflation, which CBO assumes will not occur. If they did, the economy would collapse! And if they don't, the debt does not compound out of control. I have presented these simple numbers here. For what it's worth, if you believe the capital markets signal anything, they signal their disbelief in doomsday forecasts, in the long-term interest rate on U.S. government bonds, every single day.

Yet it's treated as real and legitimate and Barack uses it to scare people in an attempt to enact the recommendations of his Cat Food Commission while left outlets remain silent over and over. Amy Goodman, ZNet, all the whores that put Barack into the White House work overtime to screw over the people today.

Last week, with ten hours of broadcast time to fill, Amy Goodman repeatedly distracted American viewers by focusing on a British scandal. The real scandal is that she got away without offering serious explorations of what's taking place right now in DC. If Barack is successful and manages to gut the safety net, that's going to have more impact on American lives than any other story in 2011. Which is why the silence on this issue is all the more appalling.

Kat: Yeah, it was my Katy Perry piece. I can't stand Perry's voice or looks but the songwriters -- that does not include Katy -- wrote a catchy little song with "Last Friday Night." Katy went on to demonstrate that not only did she not co-write the song, she didn't understand it either by making a video that completely negates the storyline of the song. So I worked on that on our plane ride back home yesterday. And I was happy that I was going to have something to post because I do get e-mails asking, "Why aren't you writing about music?" But as I was getting ready to type it up last night, the news was Amy Winehouse had died. So I rewrote the piece to work in Amy. She's "the real" of the title, "The Real and The Synthetic."

Marcia: Okay. Two Congress members went after each other last week. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat and the Chair of the DNC, took to the House floor to insult Republican Allen West when he wasn't present. When he learned of what she'd done, he fired back with an e-mail to her and to the House leadership. We got into it when we started seeing the way Wasserman Schultz and others were attempting to spin it. Kat and I were on the phone talking about it and I believe most people who wrote about it in the community spoke with Kat as well. We just couldn't believe it. Because now the spin was that West was sexist for any number of things he'd said about Little Debbie. Boo-hoos for Debbie. As I said in my title, "White girl" that would be Debbie "attacks Black man" that would be Allen "and then whines." Grow the hell up.

Jim: There was a lot of anger in the posts and, Rebecca, you talked about why that was.

Rebecca: Right. Debbie and her gang thought they were going to play "Poor Debbie Picked On By Sexist!" and ride it to victory. But this is the same Debbie who refused to call out the sexist treatment of Hillary in 2008. This includes when Little Debbie was supposed to be a Hillary supporter. Now once she flipped to Barack, all she did was offer excuses and dismissals. So the idea that this woman who did nothing when the most sexist attacks against a political candidate politics has ever seen took place is now going to try to woo the supporters of Hillary by pretending she's the injured party was outrageous.

Jim: And Stan, your take was along those lines as well but emphasizing something no one else had outright stated.

Stan: The woman trashed him on the floor of the House. Her fan base says she told the truth. I don't really care one way or the other. I care that when a Black man defends himself, all the sudden Debbie and her gang show up to start screaming "Not fair!" She started it. And there really was an uncurrent of race to this story from the minute she and her minions started attacking. I believe we called out the spin that West calling Wasserman Schultz "vile" was sexist -- it wasn't sexist at all. You would have thought he had physically threatened her or accused her of being on her period -- the way Barack Obama did to Hillary in 2008, remember. They were trying to stir up outrage and it wasn't worthy of outrage but it did demonstrate how desperate they were.

Betty: Well, for starters, Wally and Cedric are not me. It's that simple. I liked what they wrote, by the way. But there's no reason for them to cover the topic I cover or whatever. They pursue their own interests as they should.

Jim: Cedric?

Cedric: If the guy or gal's asking how we came to write about it, when Wally and I are writing, we're on the phone with each other and at least one of us is going through the news -- sometimes both of us. And we're noting whatever's outrageous or ridiculous to each other. And we're riffing on it and making jokes to each other while we try to find something we can use. In that case, that morning, we ran out of time. And Ann pointed that out to me. She tapped me on the shoulder and whispered I had been on the phone for 45 minutes. Usually, Wally and I take about 15 minutes tops to get the thing written and posted. We'd not written a single word duirng that 45 minutes. And Ann, so everyone knows, was tapping my shoulder to tell me that not because she was saying, "You're on the phone too long!" but because I usually jump in the shower right after Wally and I are done writing when we write in the morning. And Ann takes her shower after me. So she was letting me know she was hopping in the shower. So anyway, we needed something and we'd spent forever on that topic so that's what we went with. That's the technical part. In terms of the post itself, I'll toss to Wally.

Wally: Sheila Jackson Lee made an idiot out of herself by insisting that Republican objection to a so-called solution to the so-called debt crisis was racism. She's a dumb idiot. And we started talking, Cedric and I, about how stupid she was -- with many examples -- then we started wondering why the hell she's talking the economy to begin with? She sure as hell wasn't speaking on to the topic when Enron collapsed because she was tight with Ken Lay. And if we had a functioning government, all those enablers of Ken Lay would have been kicked out of Congress. They should have been and that includes Sheila Jackson Lee.

Ty: Alright. An e-mail that came in Saturday insists C.I. is "trying to hide" Friday's "Iraq snapshot" because it doesn't display currently. C.I.

C.I.: I dictate the snapshots. I have no idea why Friday's is too wide. Generally that happens when something from a Congress member's office is included by copying and pasting but there's no statement in that snapshot. For whatever reason, it was too wide. That meant that the links on the side were not showing. Due to that, I changed it to "2 posts" in Blogger/Blogspot. That took the Saturday posts but kept the snapshot off. I changed it to 3 when Kat was ready to post her music piece. I can't do that all the time, go in and change because the site's thrown off due to a post being too wide, but on the weekends, I can and should because a number of community members are using older computers and it helps them scroll if there's less there.

Ty: Whereas during the week they'd be using work computers.

C.I.: Correct.

Jim: And that Friday snapshot has two topics we want to develop further here for this edition. Though we may run out of time.

Ty: Richard e-mails to ask of Jess, "Have you really not listened to Joan Baez since she endorsed Barack Obama in the Democratic Party primary back in 2008?"

Jess: I've not listened to her. I have no interest in listening to her. Pick up the paper and you'll find her still praising the War Hawk. She's a fraud, a phony and a whore as far as I'm concerned. She can kiss my damn ass. She has refused to call out Barack for continuing the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War, she's refused to call him out for the Libyan War. I get it, I do, an elderly closeted lesbian wants to pretend she's sexually attracted to a man -- in this case, Barack -- so she can play the bi-sexual card instead of facing up to the reality that she's indeed a lesbian who has occassionaly gotten in bed with a man. At some point, the real story will emerge and people will understand both why Dylan broke up with her and that the fleeting relationship was never what Joan pretended it was. By that time, she'll still be hiding in the closet unless she's dead. I don't listen to War Hawks or their apologists. If I saw her onstage today -- and I wouldn't unless it was a music festival -- I'd throw stuff at the stage and boo non-stop. She's a fake.

Jess: Me? Yeah. When I'm done with you, I'm done with you. With Kat, give her a few months or a year and she'll be willing to give you another chance.

Kat: Jess is referring to a musician who has an album due out October 18th that I may review but the last album I reviewed by them was awful and I hated it and swore I was done with them.

Jess: Right. And then there's C.I. who will give people second chances constantly but at a certain point, it's over and she's done with you. But me, I'm done when I'm done. If you mean Joan Baez, the minute she endorsed Barack Obama, I packed up all of her CDs and put them in a closet. I was offended because she was supposed to be anti-war and yet she's endorsing a man who praises war. I was willing to take them back out, the CDs, if she recanted. It's been three years, it's too late now, she can go f**k herself and I tossed the box with all of her CDs into the trash. And if you think I'm brutal, you should speak to my parents who were lifelong fans. Were.

Jim: "The killing of a video industry (Dona)" is the topic of Janelle's e-mail. Janelle writes to thank Dona for a "vivid piece of writing" and to explain that she's going through the same thing in attempting to lose her own pregnancy weight. She wonders how much more Dona has to go?

Dona: Actually, I'm at my weight I was before the pregnancy. And that may be as much a result of the heat as it is of working out. She is one of three people who e-mail this site that I had written about my pregnancy to. Janelle and I delivered within weeks of each other. She had morning sickness all nine months and the fact that I had it and had sickness other times of the day was a great relief to her. Janelle, I didn't see your e-mail. I will write you back personally.

Jim: The Libyan War. Is it over? No, but some feel it's winding down. Ava, how about you go into the hypothesis that it's winding down?

Ava: Well I'll do it briefly and then turn it over to Elaine and Mike who, along with C.I., have been covering the issue in the community. Due to the religious holiday that starts in August, it is thought -- rightly or wrongly -- that the Libyan War may be wrapping up. I have no opinion on the hypothesis because no real evidence has been offered to back it up. I'll wait and see. Elaine and Mike?

Mike: Like most Americans who are getting non-corporate news on Libya, I've depended on the coverage of Flashpoints Radio which has featured the reports of Mahdi Nazemroaya who is with the Centre for Research on Globalization. Mahdi is in Tripoli and unembedded. Most of what he's reported on has been that the claims of the so-called rebels winning this city or town is false and that the people have not turned on Gaddafi but, in fact, the US war on Libya has created a feeling of solidarity with Gaddafi. I was bothered that he wasn't on Thursday and wondered if that had to do with his revealing what he thought of certain mainstream reporters on Wednesday? He noted, for example, that two CNN reporters appeared to be working for the US government and not for the press. As Ava said, there's a theory that the holiday next month will mean the war wraps up. Mahdi's put forward that theory himself. I have no idea what's going to happen. Elaine?

Elaine: There are bombings going on today. Patrick Cockburn has an article published today noting that 1911 saw Libya bombed by an Italian airplane. It just never ends, does it? In the article, he notes, "In air wars, the first week is usually the best. By the end of it, the easiest targets will have been destroyed and the enemy will have learnt how to hide, disperse its forces and avoid presenting a target." Regardless of how much longer it lasts, it would appear NATO and the so-called rebels have lost.

Jim: If so, what does that mean?

Isaiah: Probably that Barack shouldn't shoot off his mouth so much. He's the one who insisted Gaddafi had to leave Libya. He looks like a bigger fool than he is already. And he's looking pretty foolish between losing the Libyan War and his battles with the Congress.

Trina: And it's just further proof that this is not a real revolution or real rebels. These are hand picked elements of the west, put in place to overthrow someone they've grown tired of. They've all played footsie with Gaddafi over the years, Barack's done it since he came into office. But whenever they start lusting after the oil a little more than usual, they start listing off Gaddafi's crimes -- real and imagined -- and talking about removing him from power.

Ann: I just want to add that when someone like Borzou Daragahi is stupid enough to pen "Captured Kadafi soldiers tell rebels they have doubts" -- as he did for The Los Angeles Times -- then there's really no point in even trying to follow the war in the MSM. You really can't be that stupid as to think that prisoners of war can speak freely.

Jim: And on that note, we're going to have to wrap it up. This is a rush transcript.

Barack: Uh, yeah, China. It's me. Uh-huh. Yeah. I do need more money for my wars. Yes, I still have Iraq and Afghanistan and I've added Libya. What? Yes, there's the drone war in Pakistan as well. But each and every one of those wars is needed, trust me. So I'm going to need to borrow a few more billion from you to keep them going. What's that? What the people want? The people are lucky to have enough dimes to rub together these days, who cares what they think?

Q: You gave the commencement address at a college in Illinois two months after Bush launched the Iraq War. That rubbed your editors at The New York Times the wrong way. Why?

Hedges: Because I was booed off the stage. The Progressive actually ran a transcript of the whole talk with what people shouted in brackets. The Times editors were pressured to respond, and they responded by calling me into the office and giving me a formal written reprimand for impugning the impartiality of The New York Times. We were members of the Newspaper Guild, and the process is that you give the employee a written warning and then, under Guild rules, the next time the employee violates that warning, you can fire them. So once I was handed that written warning, it was terminal, because I wasn’t about to stop speaking out against the Iraq War. I approached Hamilton Fish at the Nation Institute about becoming a senior fellow there and leaving the Times. I did leave the Times; I wasn’t fired. But if I had stayed long enough, I would have been fired. That was inevitable.

So being against illegal war and airing that if you're a reporter can 'impugn the impartiality' of a news outlet? What about when you go the other way?

That's what Roy Gutman did in his interview with Scott Horton.

US troops needed to remain in Iraq beyond 2011 and they needed to be called "trainers." That's what Gutman told everyone. And that Nouri was a near genius while Ayad Allawi is "feckless and inept," "no where near as impressive as Maliki's been."

For those who don't know, in Iraq a power struggle continues, as it has since the March 10, 2010 elections, between Nouri al-Maliki and Ayad Allawi. For those who don't know, Allawi's political slate won the March 10th elections. Iraqiya is currently floating that they may lodge a no-confidence vote and try to trigger early elections.

And Roy Gutman, reporter for McClatchy Newspapers, is also the Baghdad Bureau Chief -- which really just means he's the outlet's American voice in Iraq. They don't trust Laith Hammoudi, Sahar Issa or any of the other reporters who've won awards and risked their lives to provide unembedded reporting for Knight-Ridder and McClatchy (Knight-Ridder was sold and became McClatchy).

Asked by Scott Horton about the opinion of the Iraqi people on the US military staying beyond 2011, Roy Gutman felt the need to explain he hadn't had time for "man on the street" interviews. How telling his noun was.

He explained that he was interested in the "political elite" and the "military elite." He's in Iraq, heading the bureau, and he's got no interest in the people of the country?

Anyone else getting the feeling that Roy Gutman is an orphan of the Green Zone? Locked away from real Iraqis, tucked safely in the Emerald City, unable to communicate with average Iraqis and unconcerned with their needs or thoughts -- even on something as basic as whether or not their country should continue to be militarily occupied by the US?

Chris Hedges aired an opinion and was hurried out the door.

Roy Gutman offers opinion and reveals clear biases against a US miltiary withdrawal, against Ayad Allawi and against the Iraqi people.

July 20 - As Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton travelled to Bali, the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) urged her to condition U.S. security assistance to Indonesia on real improvements in human rights by Indonesia government and genuine accountability for violations of human rights."The restoration of assistance to Indonesia's notorious Kopassus special forces announced a year ago should be reversed," said John M. Miller, National Coordinator of ETAN. "Kopassus training was meant to be the carrot to encourage respect for rights. There is no evidence it has done so. U.S. law bars cooperation with military and police units with such egregious human rights records. The U.S should set an example by following it's own law."On the eve of Secretary Clinton's visit, ETAN issued the following statement:

In her February 2009 visit to Indonesia, Secretary of State Clinton praised democratic reforms since the fall of the U.S.-backed Suharto, saying "Indonesia has experienced a great transformation in the last 10 years." While Indonesia has made progress since the dark days of Suharto, crimes against humanity and other violations of human rights continue. U.S. policy has largely focused on narrow strategic and economic interests that have little to do with the well-being of the Indonesian people. Meanwhile, progress has stalled. Human rights remain under threat. The military continues to find ways to maintain its influence. The pleas of the victims of human rights crimes in Timor-Leste, Aceh, West Papua, and elsewhere in the archipelago are ignored. Senior figures responsible for the worst abuses prosper.

In recent years, the U.S. has provided substantial assistance to both the Indonesian military and police. This assistance is said to come with lessons on human rights. The human rights lessons are not being learned. People see the police as abusers, not protectors and military impunity prevails. Indonesia's security forces are learning is that U.S. will assist them no matter how they behave.

Over the past year, horrific videos and other reports of torture, the burning of villages and other crimes offer graphic proof that the people of West Papua and elsewhere continue to suffer at the hands of military and police. Soldiers prosecuted for these and other incidents receive light sentences. Just this past week, four civilians, a women and three children, were wounded when Indonesian troops shot into a hut in the Puncak Jaya area of Papua.

As many as 100 political prisoners remain jailed: prosecuted and jailed for the peaceful expression of opinion. In many regions, minority religious institutions are persecuted, often with the active or tacit assistance of local security officials. Vigilante groups, like the Islamic Defenders Front, seek to enforce their own extra-legal version of morality, again with the backing of officials. Journalists, human rights defenders and anti-corruption activists are threatened and occasionally killed. The organizers of the 2004 poisoning of Indonesia's most prominent human rights lawyer, Munir, remain free and seemingly above the law.

In recent years, the U.S. has provided substantial assistance to both the Indonesian military and police. This assistance is said to come with lessons on human rights. Lessons that are not being learned. People see the police as abusers, not protectors and military impunity prevails. Indonesia's security forces are learning is that U.S. will assist them no matter how they behave.

We urge the U.S. to condition its security assistance on an end to human rights violations and to impunity. The U.S. should heed the recommendation of Timor-Leste's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste (CAVR), which urged nations to "regulate military sales and cooperation with Indonesia more effectively and make such support totally conditional on progress towards full democratisation, the subordination of the military to the rule of law and civilian government, and strict adherence with international human rights, including respect for the right of self-determination." Indonesia does not yet meet this standard.

The U.S., as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, should work to establish an international tribunal to bring to justice the perpetrators of human rights crimes committed during Indonesia's 24-year occupation of Timor-Leste. This would provide a measure of justice to the victims and their families and serve as a deterrent to future human rights violators. A tribunal is supported by the many victims of these crimes and by human rights advocates in Timor-Leste, Indonesia, the U.S., and elsewhere.

Finally, we urge Secretary Clinton to apologize to the peoples of Indonesia and Timor-Leste for U.S. support for the Suharto dictatorship. Her visit offers the U.S. a chance to decisively break with past U.S. support for torture, disappearances, rape, invasion and illegal occupation, extrajudicial murder environmental devastation. Clinton should offer condolences to Suharto's many victims throughout the archipelago and support the prosecution of those responsible.

ETAN was founded in 1991 to advocate for self-determination for Indonesian-occupied Timor-Leste. Since the beginning, ETAN has worked to condition U.S. military assistance to Indonesia on respect for human rights and genuine reform. The U.S.-based organization continues to advocate for democracy, justice and human rights for Timor-Leste and Indonesia. For more information, see ETAN's web site: http://www.etan.org.

Libya: demonization and self-determination

By Sara FloundersCo-Director, International Action Center

Published Jul 21, 2011 11:13 PM

If you went to a shopping center, a street corner or a graduate school of a top university in the U.S. and conducted a pop quiz asking who are the kings or crown princes of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco and Bahrain; the emir of Kuwait, Qatar or Dubai; and the sultan of Oman, most people would not be able to name any of them.

These dictators and feudal monarchs hold absolute control in corrupt and brutal regimes. Their rule is kept in place by U.S. arms, troops and mercenaries, but they are anonymous to the U.S. population and to most of the world’s people.

But if you went anywhere in the U.S. today and asked who lives in Libya, there is only one name that a large part of the population could tell you: Gadhafi. Many people, even if they do not know that Libya is in Africa, might tell you that Gadhafi is an evil man who “must go.”

The corporate media can demonize the leader of a country targeted by the Pentagon to the point that the consequences of using the most deadly weapons against a totally defenseless population are hidden and dismissed.

No other country in history has the capacity to wreak such havoc, using cruise missiles, bunker busters, drones, depleted uranium and dense inert metal explosive bombs, anti-personnel razor shredding bomblets, and anti-personal mines.

What should be the response to this terror?

Unfortunately, a minority of groups or individuals who present themselves as opponents of war spend more time cataloguing Gadhafi’s past real or alleged shortcomings than rallying people to respond to this criminal, all-out U.S. attack. Their influence would be small, except that it coincides with the opinions of the U.S. ruling class. Thus it is important to thoroughly answer their arguments.

Whatever mistakes made by the leaders of a small, underdeveloped country facing U.S. sanctions, sabotage and assassination attempts, they are not the reason the U.S. is hell-bent on destroying Libya today.

What is at stake?

U.S., French, British and Italian imperialists are determined to lay hold of Libya’s now well-developed infrastructure of oil refineries, pumping stations, gas lines, ports and pipelines directly into Europe, as well as billions of dollars in gold reserves, oil reserves — the largest in Africa — and Libya’s other rich assets. All of this has been built up over the four decades since U.S. and British imperialism were kicked out of the country.

The imperialists are especially determined to stop Libya’s assistance in the development of other African countries. The plans for a United Federation of Africa, which were put forth by Libya and backed with $90 billion in investment funds, deeply threaten the continued multinational corporate looting of the continent.

The people of Libya have resisted more than four months of nonstop aerial assault. The bombing has united the population. Their cohesion has grown. More than 1 million people hold giant rallies in Tripoli.

A government in fear of its population would never hand guns to the public, but Libya’s government has distributed more than 3 million weapons in a country of 6.5 million people to enable them to resist occupation.

Incredibly, it looks like the imperialists are facing still another failed war. A falling out among thieves seems to be taking place as NATO’s frustration mounts.

The response to this colonial war of aggression should be the same as the response to a racist mobilization, a racist lynch mob or a police attack on an oppressed community: Mobilize all possible forces to stand up to the crime and say “no!” Refuse to take part in the orchestrated campaign of vilification.

This may not be an easy position to take. But it is essential to reject the racist political onslaught that accompanies the military onslaught.

Demonization is meant to disorient and put the massive, criminal destruction planned by U.S. imperialism beyond debate. Enormous pressure is placed on every level of the U.S. population to accept the premise that the targeted country and its leadership are to blame. The attacks are presented as if only one person lives in Libya, and not 6.5 million people.

In preparation for a war of conquest, the role of the corporate media is to endlessly repeat every charge and statement made by the institutions of U.S. power. An almost frenzied level of lies, wild fabrications, racist stereotyping and ugly caricatures saturates all political discussion.

The corporate media spread the demands that the Pentagon death machine must act in the name of “humanity” in order to “save lives.” The war itself is cloaked in neutral terms. In the case of Libya, more than 16,000 bombing sorties against people are described as implementing a “no-fly zone.” The White House has assured the population that this bombing is not an act of war. The administration won’t even discuss it with Congress.

The response to media demonization in the midst of a war mobilization must be to focus on the outrageous crime being committed and refuse to accept or give weight to any justification for it.

Despite an ocean of propaganda, poll after poll has confirmed that from 60 percent to 65 percent of the U.S. population is against the U.S. war on Libya. This should give all opponents of this imperialist war great hope and confidence.

But the demonization and racist war propaganda have seeped down into a layer of the progressive and anti-war movement.

In every imperialist war for decades, a whole series of writers, commentators and political organizations considered to be progressive have buckled under enormous social pressure. While claiming to be against U.S wars, they allocate their greatest energies to focusing on and discussing every shortcoming, mistake and inconsistency of the targeted country — in the very same condemnatory tone as the corporate media.

The responsibility of progressive intellectuals and groups in the United States is to utilize their considerable research skills to extract every piece of information that could explain the corporate stakes — the anticipated profits behind the imperialist war. And never to echo in left terminology the charges made in the imperialist media.

Working people need to know the real reason behind the attack. Thus every effort must be made to avoid reinforcing government propaganda. Progressives should look to build the broadest possible unity in order to speak with one voice against the war.

Of course, such misguided groups are a small minority in the progressive movement. But there are those political organizations, which six months ago had not bothered to mention Libya, that now suddenly seek out respectable venues to add their own reasons that the dictator Gadhafi “must go” — an echo of the imperialist demand. Some even insist that in order to be part of the political discourse, every anti-war voice must first join in condemnation of Gadhafi.

In a few places this chorus on the sidelines has even disrupted anti-war meetings, calling on the anti-war movement to fall in line and echo the racist ruling class.

The Cynthia McKinney tour

In their determination to join with all the “respectable voices” condemning Libya, some groups have even sounded just like the imperialist media by seeking to silence the courageous voice of former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney. This is how arrogant and offensive those who demand collusion in U.S. wars have become.

McKinney risked her life to visit Libya with a U.S. delegation in the midst of the U.S./NATO bombing. She deserves respect.

McKinney was first a target of national media condemnation as a young, first-term state representative in the Georgia Assembly, when she dared to speak out against the U.S. war on Iraq. The entire chamber of representatives stood up, turned their backs on her and walked out.

When elected to the U.S. Congress, her outspoken opposition to and questioning of the orchestrated national frenzy surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001, attack; her clear opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement; her defense of political prisoners; and her support of the Palestinian people generated national campaigns to pour funds into opposing candidates in her small Georgia congressional district. Again and again the district lines were redrawn in an attempt to disqualify McKinney from the U.S. Congress. She has earned international acclaim for her candidacy for president on the Green Party ticket, for her participation in humanitarian convoys to Gaza and for being jailed by Israel.

McKinney’s tour to six cities organized by the Answer Coalition, and now to 11 cities organized by the International Action Center — all of which have successfully mobilized forces against the U.S./NATO invasion of Africa — have also come under criticism and cowardly attack. Some of these elements are even writing and speaking against McKinney’s right to speak against the war in Libya.

Even more arrogant and insensitive are their attacks on the Nation of Islam and Pan-African voices opposing the war.

For more than three decades many Pan-African activists, African people and Muslims have followed developments in Libya with great interest and enthusiasm. Many people traveled to Libya and favorably compared the social accomplishments in Libya — which, according to the U.N., scored highest in Africa on the Human Development Index in education, housing, length of life, nutrition and infant mortality — to the enormous poverty and glaring underdevelopment of most of the continent. They have spoken out forcefully against the looting of Africa and defended Libya as a country that, although sanctioned, sabotaged and under continuing attack, managed to maintain a level of independence from imperialism.

It is criminal to dismiss those actually mobilizing, writing and speaking against war as just pro-Gadhafi.

Pentagon lynch mob

What should be the attitude toward a family or a town seized by a lynch mob?

How does one respond if a racist gang of thugs, with torches and gasoline, is ready to set fire to a home with children inside, or is determined to capture someone who they felt had not shown proper “respect?” Is that a time to wander off into analysis of the targeted victims’ credit card payments, driving record or other possible past mistakes or personal shortcomings?

Bombs are falling on Tripoli. Isn’t that a Pentagon lynching?

In the face of a criminal terror campaign against a whole country, it’s imperative not to do anything to support the attack. It’s essential to do everything in your power to mobilize people to resist.

To use every possible argument of defense, and not give a shred of legitimacy to the racists who are attempting to burn the whole country down, along with all of its proud accomplishments.

Don’t allow yourself to be on the same side as the imperialist war makers.

Leave it to the Libyan people to decide their own future without U.S./NATO bombs. Leave it to African, Arab and especially Libyan people to discuss and debate, without outside interference.

But here in the center of the U.S. empire, it is important to refuse to join in the demonization and attacks used to justify atrocities committed by corporate power. Most important: Don’t echo imperialist propaganda in the midst of a war of aggression. Don’t join in a lynch mob being organized by the Pentagon!

Unite behind one clear slogan: Stop the U.S./NATO war on Libya.

Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

US wants to end Libya's independent resistance

The US government has officially recognised the rebel government in Libya.

This means that they will provide funding for the National Transitional Council (NTC).

The US is signalling that it trusts the NTC to act in the interests of imperialism.

It is part of the US’s plan to regain control over as many parts of the Middle East and North Africa as possible—after this year’s revolutions across the region loosened its grip.

Recognition of the council means that the US will be able to fund the opposition with some of the more than £20 billion in Gaddafi-regime assets that are frozen in US banks.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said, “The United States views the Gaddafi regime as no longer having any legitimate authority in Libya, and so I am announcing today that, until an interim authority is in place, the United States will recognise the NTC as the legitimate governing authority for Libya.”

Released

The leaders of the NTC want the assets to be released, and hope that support from other countries will now begin to flow.

Spokesman Mahmoud Shammam called for “funds, funds, funds” from other countries.

Libya is the world’s 17th largest oil producer.

It can deliver over 1.5 million barrels a day at full production.

One of the main aims of the NTC is to get oil exports back on track—and the US, with its oil-hungry economy, is an enthusiastic supporter.

The Nato bombing mission has opened the door to more foreign control of the country—particularly for the US.

Foreign forces, pretending to offer assistance when really they want to boost their own power and profits, want to snuff out any independent elements of the rebellion against Gaddafi.

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